Digital Commons Network^™

Variations In Vulnerability To Climate Change In Southeast Asia, Kelsey Margaret Allard

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Two Potential Streamgage Locations On Scott Creek At Swanton Pacific Ranch, California, Matthew C. Scrudato

Master's Theses

Two locations on Scott Creek, located 12 miles north of Santa Cruz California, are being considered for the installation of a streamgage to measure discharge. Each location offers unique considerations and challenges in gage construction and discharge measurement capabilities. A detailed flood frequency analysis was completed using a direct watershed comparison, direct equations developed by Waananen and Crippen, a Log Pearson Type III Frequency Distribution, a regional analysis, and two-station comparisons. Final results indicate a 100-year recurrence interval of 6,310 ft3/s at the Upper Scott Creek location and 6,520 ft3/s at the lower location. A detailed indirect measurement revealed that …

Enrichments Of Heavy Sulfur (34s) In Sulfide Minerals: Gas Hydrates, Methane Delivery, And Anaerobic Methane Oxidation, Walter S. Borowski, Namcy M. Rodriguez, Charles K. Paull, William Ussler Iii

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The sulfur isotopic composition of authigenic, sedimentary sulfide minerals is largely controlled by sulfate reduction and related processes within sedimentary environments. Histograms show that that d³⁴S values of sulfide minerals forming in depositional and diagenetic environments are most often negative (d³⁴S < 0^o/_oo CDT) reflecting the original isotopic composition of seawater sulfate (now ~21^o/_oo), microbially-mediated fractionations of ~-8 to -40^o/_oo (a = 1.029-1.059) during sulfate reduction, and more extreme fractionations caused by sulfur disproportionation. Enrichments of heavy sulfur (d³⁴S > 0^o/_oo) in sulfide …

Counterintuitive Consequence Of Heating In Strongly-Driven Intrinsic Junctions Of Bi₂Sr₂Cacu₂O8+Δ Mesas, Cihan Kurter, Lutfi Ozyuzer, Thomas Proslier, John F. Zasadzinski, David G. Hinks, Kenneth E. Gray

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Anomalously high and sharp peaks in the conductance of intrinsic Josephson junctions in Bi₂ Sr₂ CaCu₂ O _8+δ (Bi2212) mesas have been commonly interpreted as superconducting energy gaps but here we show they are a result of strong self-heating. This conclusion follows directly from a comparison to the equilibrium gap measured by tunneling in single break junctions on equivalent crystals. As the number of junctions in the mesa, N, and thus heating increase, the peak voltages decrease and the peak width abruptly sharpens for N≥12. Clearly these widely variable features vs N cannot all represent the equilibrium …

Climatic Cycles Recorded In The Middle Eocene Hemipelagites From A Dinaric Foreland Basin Of Istria (Croatia), Borna Lužar-Oberiter, Peter A. Hochuli, Ljubomir Babić, Bosiljka Glumac, Darko Tibljas

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

Middle Eocene hemipelagic marls from the Pazin-Trieste Basin, a foreland basin of the Croatian Dinarides, display repetitive alternations of two types of marls with different resistance to weathering. This study focuses on the chemical composition, stable isotopes, and palynomorph content of these marls in order to better understand the nature of their cyclic deposition and to identify possible paleoenvironmental drivers responsible for their formation. The less resistant marls (LRM) have consistently lower carbonate content, lower δ18O and δ13C values, and more abundant dinoflagellate cysts than the more resistant marls (MRM). We interpret these differences between the two marl types to …

Participatory Evaluation Of Integrated Pest And Soil Fertility Management Options Using Ordered Categorical Data Analysis, Hugo De Groote, Esther Rutto, George Odhiambo, Fred Kanampiu, Zeyaur Khan, Richard Coe, Bernard Vanlauwe

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Maize is becoming the major food crop around Lake Victoria. Major constraints to its production are Striga, stem borer, and declining soil fertility. Innovative integrated technologies have been developed: the 'push-pull' system (intercropping with Desmodium and surrounded by Napier grass), soybean and Crotalaria rotations, and imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize seed. In 12 demonstration trials in four villages in Siaya and Vihiga districts (Kenya) and two villages in Busia (Uganda) in 2003 and 2004, 504 farmers evaluated all cropping systems and a mono-cropped continuous maize, each cropped with IR or local maize, and supplemented or not with fertilizer, totaling 16 treatments. Farmers …

Structural And Stratigraphic Control On The Migration Of A Contaminant Plume At The P Reactor Area, Savannah River Site, South Carolina, Antonio E. Cameron González, Camelia C. Knapp, Michael G. Waddell, Adrian Addison, John M. Shafer

Faculty Publications

Geophysical methods, including a shallow seismic reflection (SSR) survey, surface and borehole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data, and electrical resistivity imaging (ERI), were conducted at the Savannah River site (SRS), South Carolina, to investigate the shallow stratigraphy, hydrogeophysical zonation, and the applicability and performance of these geophysical techniques for hydrogeological characterization in contaminant areas. The study site is the P Reactor area located within the upper Atlantic coastal plain, with clastic sediments ranging from Late Cretaceous to Miocene in age. The target of this research was the delineation and prediction of migration pathways of a trichloroethylene (TCE) contaminant plume that originates …

Mississippi Canyon 252 Incident Nrda Tier 1 For Deepwater Communities, Gregory Boland, Gary Brewer, Erik Cordes, Amanda Demopoulos, Chuek Fisher, Chris German, Ken Sulak

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is geologically diverse basin, described as the most complex continental slope region in the world. Regional topography of the slope consists of basins, knolls, ridges, and mounds derived from the dynamic adjustments of salt and the introduction of large volumes of sediment over long time scales. More than 99% of the sea floor in the GOM consists of soft sediment made up of various mixtures of primarily silt and clay. These wide-spread soft bottom communities are described in reports from major MMS studies by Gallaway et al. (1998) and Rowe and Kennicutt (2009). Relative …

Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, And Ichnology Of The Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation In The Alkali Anticline Region, Bighorn County, Wyoming, Charles K. Clark

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation was studied along two strike-parallel cliff-lines in the Alkali Anticline region of the northeastern Bighorn Basin, Bighorn County, Wyoming. The unit comprises up to 145 m of mudrock, sandstone, conglomerate, and volcanic fallout sediments deposited along the western margin of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (KWIS) in the mid- to late-Cenomanian. Eighteen facies, comprising six facies associations are identified from physical and biogenic sedimentary features. Sediments were deposited in open marine offshore to shoreface and subaqueous deltaic to delta platform environments. The observed trace fossil suites record departures from the archetypal ichnofacies. Such departures record …

Establishment And Partial Characterization Of A Cell Line From Burbot Lota Lota Maculosa: Susceptibility To Ihnv, Ipnv And Vhsv, Mark P. Polinski, John D. Drennan, William N. Batts, Susan C. Ireland, Kenneth D. Cain

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

This study describes the development and partial characterization of a continuous fibroblastic-like cell line (BEF-1) developed from late stage embryos of North American burbot Lota lota maculosa. This cell line has been maintained for over 5 yr and 100 passages in vitro. Cells were cultured using Eagle’s minimum essential medium with Earle’s salts (MEM) supplemented with GlutaMAX ™, and 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), pH 7.4. The addition of penicillin-streptomycinneomycin (PSN) antibiotic mixture (0.05, 0.05, 0.1 mg ml–1, respectively) did not negatively influence cell replication; however, the antimycotic Fungizone™ (2.5 μg ml–1, amphotericin B) caused cell rounding and …

The Hydro-Ecology Of Everyday Life: Assessing The Social And Environmental Determinants Of Water Use In The Portland Region, Vivek Shandas

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

Driven in part by the imminent threats of population growth and climate destabilization, recent studies suggest that urban areas face severe water scarcity, with some areas in Australia and the United States already instituting moratoria on water use. While water managers traditionally avoid such crises by developing demand forecasts based on population estimates, technological developments, and weather predictions, their analysis are often at a regional scale with aggregate measures of water consumption. To date, there exists limited empirical evidence about how urban spatial structure and concomitant socio-demographic and temperature characteristics mutually interact to affect water demand at the scale of …

A Re-Evaluation Of The Pleistocene Hellbender, Cryptobranchus Guildayi, And An Overview Of Cryptobranchus Remains From Appalachian Caves., Keila Elaine Bredehoeft

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cryptobranchus guildayi is described as an extinct species of large salamander that is closely related to the hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis. The validity of this extinct taxon has been questioned, so an expanded osteological sample of modern hellbenders was used for comparative purposes with the C. guildayi fossil material. Based on this analysis, all supposed distinguishing morphological characteristics used to define C. guildayi can be observed in specimens of C. alleganiensis, or are based on misidentifications. Therefore, Cryptobranchus guildayi is considered to be conspecific with C. alleganiensis and taxonomically should be considered a junior synonym of the latter. The …

Sensitivity Analysis Of B-Factor In Microwave Emission Model For Soil Moisture Retrieval: A Case Study For Smap Mission, Dugwon Seo, Tarendra Lakhankar, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Sensitivity analysis is critically needed to better understand the microwave emission model for soil moisture retrieval using passive microwave remote sensing data. The vegetation b-factor along with vegetation water content and surface characteristics has significant impact in model prediction. This study evaluates the sensitivity of the b-factor, which is function of vegetation type. The analysis is carried out using Passive and Active L and S-band airborne sensor (PALS) and measured field soil moisture from Southern Great Plains experiment (SGP99). The results show that the relative sensitivity of the b-factor is 86% in wet soil condition and 88% in high vegetated …

A Novel Pervious Cement Reaction Barrier (Pcrb) In Situ Arsenic Remediation System, Morgan Liane Jones

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Fresh Water Resources At The Line Hole Well Field, San Salvador Island, The Bahamas, Scot Allan Russell Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A major economic constraint in the Bahamas, and other small carbonates islands world-wide, is the lack of fresh water resources. To combat these socio-economic problems on San Salvador Island I sought to gain a more detailed understanding of the extent, behavior, and controls on the island’s fresh-water lens. DC electrical resistivity tomography and time-series geochemical data are used to study the fresh water lens at the Line Hole well field. Electrical Resistivity profiles are used to image the extent of fresh water resources. Time-series geochemical data provide information on the behavior of the fresh water resources as a function of …

Bracketing The Age Of The Great Gallery Rock Art Panel In Horseshoe Canyon, Utah By Osl Dating Of Associated Alluvial Terraces, Melissa S. Jackson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Barrier Canyon Style rock art (BCS) is a unique rock art style indigenous to the middle Colorado Plateau that is of an unknown age and formed by a combination of wall preparation, rock pecking, and application of multiple pigments. It is characterized by broad-shouldered, mummy-like figures that commonly lack limbs and facial details but are accompanied by animated and realistic representations of animals. The age of BCS art remains unknown in spite of attempts to radiocarbon date accessory brush fibers in the mineral-based pigment. Yet a range of age hypotheses exist, from as young as 1600 AD to as old …

Characterization Of Englacial Voids Using Radar Velocity Anisotropy, Joshua D. Nichols

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Glacial hydrology plays an important role in the motion and melt of glaciers. The transport of water through glacial ice is still poorly understood. Previous studies show that much of the water is stored and routed through planar voids within the glacier. From borehole observations and previous radar surveys, the voids appear to have a preferential orientation. Transverse waves, including radar waves, and shear seismic waves, travel at different velocities when polarized at different orientations relative to aligned inclusions. I conducted two georadar surveys on Bench glacier, in the Chugach Mountains, AK. Bench glacier has been the field site of …

A Study Of Coastal Headwater Stream Hydrology: Bannockburn Plantation, Georgetown County, Sc, Drake Rogers

All Theses

Coastal headwater streams in undeveloped forested landscapes function as a natural storage and conveyance mechanism for rainfall and groundwater. Stream flows are often driven by groundwater table depth, while soil saturation with a high water table may drive rainfall response. Evapotranspiration also plays a significant role in groundwater levels and influences stream flows both seasonally and diurnally. The dynamics of coastal forested watersheds are complex, and water budgets of these low gradient headwater streams are difficult to quantify.
Understanding these hydrologic dynamics is critical to water resources protection and flood prevention in coastal landscapes, especially as forested areas are converted …

A Targeted Modeling Study Of The Interaction Between A Supercell And A Preexisting Airmass Boundary, Jennifer M. Laflin

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

It is theorized that supercell thunderstorms account for the majority of significantly severe convective weather which occurs in the United States, and as a result, it is necessary that the mechanisms which tend to produce supercells are recognized and investigated. Airmass boundaries have been identified as a preferred location for supercell development due to the enhanced horizontal vorticity and forced ascent that are found along the boundary. This study examines the specific influence of a preexisting airmass boundary on supercell development through a set of idealized simulations. These simulations are based on a supercell which formed along an outflow boundary …

Variations In Winter Surface High Pressure In The Northern Hemisphere And Climatological Impacts Of Diminishing Arctic Sea Ice, Kristen D. Fox

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study explores the role Arctic sea ice plays in determining mean sea level pressure and 1000 hPa temperatures during Northern Hemisphere winters while focusing on an extended period of October to March. This is accomplished by investigating two regions of the same size and comparable climatic zones and elevations in the Northern Hemisphere. A breakdown of 29 years of reanalysis data into average monthly values, anomalies, trends, and comparisons between regions serves as current data to compare with a computer model control run. Ensuring the control run accurately models current atmospheric patterns, altering the model inputs to have no …

Age And Isotopic Investigations Of The Olds Ferry Terrane And Its Relations To Other Terranes Of The Blue Mountains Province, Eastern Oregon And West-Central Idaho, Kyle P. Tumpane

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Olds Ferry terrane of the Blue Mountains province is one of the numerous accreted terranes that comprise the western North American Cordillera. The Blue Mountains province is located in central and eastern Oregon, western Idaho, and extreme southeastern Washington, and is a crucial link in reconstructions of the North American Cordillera due to its position in an area with few visible terranes between the more extensively exposed terranes to the south in California and Nevada and to the north in Canada and Alaska.

New field evidence and U-Pb zircon geochronology for volcanics within the sedimentary onlap assemblages overlying the …

Geochemical And Geochronological Constraints On The Tectonothermal History Of The Central And Eastern Nepal Himalaya: Implications For Thermal-Mechanical Models, Stacey Lynn Corrie

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Syntheses of Himalayan tectonics imply an average shortening rate of ~2 cm/yr across the Himalaya over the last 20-25 Myr. However, despite decades of research, basic questions still remain about how strain was partitioned. Fluctuations in the timing and rate of thrusting could have significant implications for strain partitioning across the Himalaya, and for partitioning during collisional orogenesis as a whole.

Due to the observed chronology and thermobarometry of Greater Himalayan Sequence (GHS) rock units in the Annapurna region of central Nepal, we revise the original interpretation of the Bhanuwa Fault from a normal fault to a thrust, and identify …

Using Soil Moisture Trends Across Topographic Gradients To Examine Controls On Semi-Arid Ecosystem Dynamics, Toni Jo Smith

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated controls on soil water storage and its effect on vegetation cover in a semi-arid, mountainous environment characterized by warm-dry summers and wet-cold winters. Soil moisture and soil temperature were monitored over 286 days at eight sites spanning four elevations (approx. 1100, 1300, 1500, and 1800 m asl), and paired north and south exposures. These sites span an ecological gradient from grass and shrub land to conifer forest. Measurements of soil texture, soil depth, vegetation cover (normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI), and soil carbon content were made at the same sites. Variables that strongly influence the soil water …

A Study Of The Sustainability Of Wild Capture Salmon In The Pacific Northwest, Justin D. Hansen

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Identifying Controls On Surface Carbon Dioxide Efflux In A Semi-Arid Ecosystem, Katrina Elsie Ladd

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on soil respiration, the least constrained process in the terrestrial carbon cycle, and a source of uncertainty for model predicted ecosystem response to climate change. Respiration processes that make up soil respiration respond to environmental influencing factors, temperature, and moisture. Respiration responses vary by site, time of year, and also year to year, confounding determination of individual influence of the factors, making soil respiration difficult to model. This research took advantage of the climate characteristics of a semi-arid system, in order to observe soil temperature and moisture influence on soil respiration. Field measurements of soil surface CO …

The Holocene Depositional History Of Thousand Acre Marsh (Georgetown County, Sc, Usa) From Correlation Of Ground Penetrating Radar With Subsurface Stratigraphy, A L. Springer, Camelia C. Knapp, Paul T. Gayes, Leonard R. Gardiner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ground Surface Deformation Patterns, Magma Supply, And Magma Storage At Okmok Volcano, Alaska, From Insar Analysis: 1. Inter-Eruption Deformation, 1997-2008, Zhong Lu, Daniel Dzurisin, Juliet Biggs, Charles Wicks Jr., Stephen R. Mcnutt

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Starting soon after the 1997 eruption at Okmok volcano and continuing until the start of the 2008 eruption, magma accumulated in a storage zone centered ∼3.5 km beneath the caldera floor at a rate that varied with time. A Mogi-type point pressure source or finite sphere with a radius of 1 km provides an adequate fit to the deformation field portrayed in time-sequential interferometric synthetic aperture radar images. From the end of the 1997 eruption through summer 2004, magma storage increased by 3.2–4.5 × 10⁷ m³, which corresponds to 75–85% of the magma volume erupted in 1997. …

Random Forests Applied As A Soil Spatial Predictive Model In Arid Utah, Alexander Knell Stum

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Initial soil surveys are incomplete for large tracts of public land in the western USA. Digital soil mapping offers a quantitative approach as an alternative to traditional soil mapping. I sought to predict soil classes across an arid to semiarid watershed of western Utah by applying random forests (RF) and using environmental covariates derived from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and digital elevation models (DEM). Random forests are similar to classification and regression trees (CART). However, RF is doubly random. Many (e.g., 500) weak trees are grown (trained) independently because each tree is trained with a new randomly …

Petrogenesis Of The Greenwater Range: Comparison To The Crater Flat Volcanic Field And Implications For Hazard Assessment, Ashley Kaye Tibbetts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Pliocene basalts of the Greenwater Range, California erupted from 24 volcanic vents now represented by volcanic plugs, craters and scoria mounds. Basaltic magmas originated in the asthenospheric mantle, but show evidence of a lithospheric component. Depths and temperatures of melting calculated using a silica activity geobarometer are 54.3–89.6 km and 1367-1435oC, placing melting in the asthenosphere. The preferred petrogenetic model involves melting of lithospheric mantle thermally and mechanically, but not chemically, converted to asthenospheric mantle. Melting depths correspond to low velocity zones in the mantle as revealed in seismic profiles. Chemical and lithologic similarities between basalt in the Greenwater Range …

Examination Of Deformation In Crystalline Rock From Strike-Slip Faults In Two Locations, Southern California, David H. Forand

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Damage zones adjacent to or associated with faults are important to the geologic community because of their implications to hazards and their ability to preserve evidence for, and show history of, slip, fluid flow, and deformation associated with large strike-slip faults. We examine two fault zones in southern California where fault zone damage is expressed. We revisit the drilled crystalline core from the Cajon Pass California drill hole, 4 km northeast of the San Andreas fault (SAF), and 1 km north of the Cleghorn fault, to perform a systematic structural analysis of deformation and alteration associated with strike-slip faulting at …